We are excited to share this professional development opportunity sponsored by The Northeast Regional Collaborative (NERC), comprised of instructional design/instructional technologist and teaching and learning staff at NECC, MCC, NSCC, and SSU.

Join a faculty panel on a discussion on the emerging roles of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education and the array of considerations surrounding its introduction. Faculty, researchers and administrators from various institutions will share their use of AI technologies from multidisciplinary perspectives, discuss potential benefits as well as limitations and ethical dilemmas for students, faculty, and institutions.

Few questions that will be addressed during the session:

• How might AI encourage or disrupt student learning and development?
• What are risks and rewards for pedagogical and assessment practices?
• How does AI affect equity and access in higher education?
• Could AI aim to replace or enhance human roles and capacities?
• How can you implement AI responsibly and ethically in your classroom? How should institutions implement it?

After short, concise, and insightful presentations by each panelist, the discussion will be opened for audience questions. Whether enthusiastic or skeptical about AI, this session will broaden perspectives on the transformative yet controversial changes AI may bring to postsecondary teaching, learning, and beyond.

About the Speakers

Forum Moderator

Lance Eaton, faculty and Director of Faculty Development & Innovation at College Unbound

Lance is the Director of Faculty Development & Innovation at College Unbound, a part-time instructor at North Shore Community College, and a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston with a dissertation that is focusing on how scholars engage in academic piracy. His work is often engaging with the possibility of digital tools for expanding teaching and learning communities while considering the various deep issues and questions that educational technologies open up for students, faculty, and higher ed as a whole. He has given talks, written about, and presented at conferences on artificial intelligence generative tools in education, academic piracy, open access, OER, open pedagogy, hybrid flexible learning, and digital service-learning. His musings, reflections, and ramblings can be found on his blog.

Panelists

Robert LeBlanc, Associate Professor of English, North Shore Community College. Rob focuses on AI use as an educational tool and seeking ways to help students improve their writing experiences.

Diane McDermott Cerasuolo, Associate Professor of Marketing, North Shore Community College. Diane’s focus is on how AI is enhancing and replacing humans. Her focus is digital and social marketing where AI is a tsunami of change in the advertising/marketing world.

Peter Shea, Director of Professional Development, Middlesex Community College. Peter uses AI to create interactive open educational resources such as this – https://www.branchtrack.com/p/ltl6wrcd and also in teaching English courses.

Kristen Sparrow, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Science, Northern Essex Community College. Kristen’s curiosity with AI focuses on incorporating accessible practices for teaching and learning.

Devan Walton, Associate Professor of Computer Information Science, Northern Essex Community College. Devan is conducting extensive research on AI for various subject matters and also incorporates it in his teaching practice. He has written extensively on AI and works with faculty and administrators in developing best practices for ethical and safe approaches.